I have numerous interests, including poetry, literature, politics, and ethics, but have been thinking about embarking on a personal blog just devoted to religion (or rather, my experience on the path) for a while. Not long ago, someone suggested that it was impudent of me to express factual information -- not an opinion -- in an online venue because I lack the gravitas to be taken seriously. While true, and there is no reason to take me seriously, that statement planted the seed for gravitas vulgaris, or, ordinary gravity, ordinary authority, ordinary weight, ordinary dignity. The idea is, despite any ad hominem to the contrary, no one needs any extra authority to speak for themselves, or for others, or even just to speak the truth in love, even if its an uncomfortable situation.

My background in brief: I am a writer, and have felt the call to write since kindergarten. I wrote my first full-length novel in the seventh grade, a science fiction spectacle. I published my own newsletter in sixth grade, and continued to do so through high school, as well. Since then, I have been published here and there and recently was given the Art Kreisman Award for Creative Writing by the Oregon Center for the Arts. I have done other kinds of writing as well, including ghost blogging, ghostwriting an entire self-help book in two months, SEO writing and ad copy, as well as nonfiction writing pertaining to Orthodox Christianity. I have also done a lot of editing work, including as a contributing editor for "In Communion: The Journal of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship" and have published in those pages as well. I also write for the Huffington Post on occasion.

I grew up in a non-religious home, and dropped out of high school my senior year. My college career after that was short-lived, and I had a conversion experience that involved a lot of drama, including events not easily understood in our enlightened era. Shortly after that, I joined the organization "Youth with A Mission," seeking to minister to people all throughout Mexico and Guatemala, which was of course an intense experience. I went to Bible College after that, graduated with a degree in Theology, then left Protestantism for the Orthodox Church. I was recieved in 1995 at The Protection of the Virgin Mary Orthodox Church in Santa Rosa, California.

Since that time I have traveled a bit, married and had children (three, two boys and a girl), lived in St. Louis and Lawrence, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri. I also went back to school as an older student to study Psychology as well as English. Presently I make my home in Southern Oregon, but am tentatively planning a move back to the midwest.